Defend jobs & UNITE the union

UNITE members at IT Services giant Fujitsu need your support.Manchester members have voted for a third time to strike in the long running dispute, following 27 previous strike days.  Members are opposing Compulsory Redundancies, opposing victimisation of their union reps, and demanding that Fujitsu honours its redundancy agreements.

Six Manchester members have been fighting their redundancy.  Of the six, a majority were ethnic minority, a majority were disabled, two were union reps and one had complained of sexual harassment linked to her selection.  Fujitsu dismissed Saj Patel despite jobs being available in her
department and her grievance not being heard.  The third of the six was dismissed on New Year’s Eve.  Fujitsu wrote to Ian Allinson, chair of Unite @ Fujitsu in the UK, while he was on
compassionate leave attending a family funeral to tell him he will be dismissed on 12 January despite having an outstanding internal job application.

Ian is one of three reps fighting victimisation. Ian is in a tiny fake redundancy selection pool where the company cut 100% of the jobs. Ian has worked at Fujitsu for 30 years and has led union growth there since the early 1990s. Fujitsu stopped Lynne Hodge doing most of her job in May 2016 and
told colleagues not to work with her. Denis Morris was selected for redundancy on the basis of scoring that mainly focused on his rep role and disability, not his skills, knowledge etc.

Fujitsu Services Limited, the main UK company, remains profitable, and one director got £1.635m last year, up 13%.  Fujitsu planned to cut 1800 UK jobs through offshoring, automation and outsourcing. First it terminated the UK works council through which the company had agreed
enhanced redundancy terms/protection leaving little more than statutory redundancy terms for the majority, removing the incentive for Fujitsu to retrain and redeploy rather than making avoidable compulsory redundancies.

We have always given and received great solidarity.  We are asking for your support now